7. Read the Book MI in the Elementary Classroom. Pick two activities from the back of the chapters. Implement two of these ideas into your class. Write a report of 250 (+-) words describing your activity. Be sure to tell me. a. The age of the students and grade level b. The Subject you teach c. How you implemented the activity d. How the children responded e. Will you do this again? f. What will you do differently.
a. The age of children I teach: I teach kindergarten, ages 5 and 6.
b. I teach in the context of a self-contained classroom all the subjects. Our kindergarten classes are part of the Primary Years Program of the IB program. We are full immersion in English at the Kindergarten level.
THE ACTIVITIES I CHOSE TO IMPLEMENT ARE:
First Activity: Novice/Expert Activity – page 30(with a kindergarten twist) Second Activity: Bingo Activity page 126
--------------------------------------------------------------------------- c. ACTIVITY ONE: HOW I IMPLEMENTED THIS ACTIVITY:
Our PYP unit of inquiry is about the theme of Celebrations. As their summative assessment, the students had been designing throughout the unit our very own celebration (THE LOST TOOTH CELEBRATION). Their final project was to present their celebration.
My original intent was to use a variation of the novice/expert activity, and have the students choose how they wanted to present their celebration, but using only their “expert” mode, or their favorite and chosen way.
I had my clipboard and data sheet ready and I was all set to find out who my “experts” were.
So I gave them their choices.
How many would like to build a celebration machine (Which generates your own dream celebration? (19 out of 19 hands came up).
How many would like to make books about their dream celebration? (Again, 19 out of 19 hands shot up)
How many of you would like to design a poster about your dream celebration? (Guess how many hands went up: 19!!!!)
How many of you would like to act out a celebration in the dramatic play area and put it up as a show for the rest of us?
(This time ZERO hands came up!)
My CONCLUSION at that point was that my students, given their young age, had not yet limited themselves to any particular mode of operation. They were still exploring and enjoying many different media. (It was clear however, that performing was not one of them.) They were “Developing their talents” through their exploration.
So I quickly changed my plan. We are building our talents. We will not limit ourselves to an activity. We will do ALL THREE: And that is what we did.
STEPS TO OUR MACHINE MAKING:
1. Make a blue print of your machine in pencil and describe your plan. 2. Build your machine. 3. Draw your machine with permanent markers and watercolors. 4. Describe your end product to your teacher as well to two or three classmates. (Teacher wrote the words down as their “story”). This will be turned into a class book about celebration machines. 5. Display your product, your art work, and your words for all to see. 6. Share the end product with your parents during our end of year celebration party (All parents came to school on Monday December 20 to attend the Christmas show). 7. Share the end product with students from Room 103 (next door), Ms. Carina's class. This will be the "acting" part of their project. Due to their reluctance to act, this will be an area I will focus on developing throughout the year. (Unfortunately, I was not able to videotape the sharing part, which would have been the ideal culmination of this project).
blueprint, machine, artwork, and narrative.
Sharing about our machines with Ms. Carina's class.
"Eric", one of our visitors from next door, was inspired to create his own machine.
Hannah" sharing her book with her friend. She was the only one who did not succumb to the lure of machine making and firmly stood by making a celebration book rather than a machine. d. CHILDREN’S RESPONSE:
We spent two days making blue prints of our machines. Students chose whether to work with a partner or to work alone. (My assistant and I kept data on who chose what).
Children were fascinated by the recyclables, and as they were working, if they chose a recyclable that came from their homes, they told us the story of that recyclable.
Children were very interested in every step. Many of the typically reluctant artists found it very easy to draw because they had the machine in front of them, and they were very invested in its production.
Even though children varied in their verbal skills, many had a lot to say about their machine, even the ones that are typically not overly verbal.
The lesson taught me as a teacher that when children are motivated and invested in what they are doing, their quality of work goes up. Their talent development is deeper.
e. Would I do this again?
Yes, this activity was fabulous. f. What would you do differently:
What I learned about THIS group of students is that 1. They prefer to work alone and 2. They do not like to perform.
Whereas I would not change this activity, I will make a more conscious effort during this year, and with this group, to expose them more to cooperative group work as well as to opportunities to role play and dramatize. Next time, I will make sure to videotape as they present their machines to their guests.
In the link below, you can see the narratives about the different machines.
Activity Two: People Bingo (p. 126)Edu604 people Bingo.doc I have inserted a link to the file because you cannot see the images here.
Receiving instructions for the Bingo game.
I like ballet
I like gymnatics
I like to sing
I like to dance
I like to read
I like to write stories
I like to draw
I like to swim
I play soccer
I play tennis
I play golf
I like dinosaurs
I can do the WHOLE monkey bars
I can ride a bike with 2 wheels
I can do somersaults
I like the beach
I like to paint
I like horses
I like Legos
I like blocks
C. How I implemented this activity: I chose this activity because it seemed like a good way to end the semester. We did it on the last two days of school. I chose to modify it from the example given in the book (page 128) by adding images. The reading part would have been too frustrating. The children would not possibly remember what each box stood for. I included a lot of our sight words in the boxes and chose very simple language. I included a separate box for signing your name as Kindergartners would be too frustrated by small places to sign, and too confused if the space to sign was not clear. The other “academic” skill that this reinforced is that it asked them to sign their name 19 times, and they did it in a fun way.
d. The children enjoyed this activity. The next day I asked them to reflect on the activity: “ what did you like about the activity we did yesterday?”
Responses: I liked moving around and asking my friends questions. I liked finding out about my friends I liked telling my friends what I liked.
The interesting part of my observations was that students needed a LOT of social skills for this activity. They had to know how to approach a person, know when they are available to listen to them, secure their attention, ask them a clear question such as: "What is your favorite activity?". I noticed that students who lacked these skills just sat there and waited for others to approach them.
e. Will you do this again? YES! I now have this Bingo game and will do it with each new group of students.
f. I would not do it on the last two days of school. It took too long, and we ended up with an unfinished activity. I would start it earlier, do a little bit each day, and allow the kids to reach closure by completing their BINGO. Whereas it is a good activity to do at the beginning of the year for older children, K kids would not have been able to sign in confined spaces earlier on in the year. So I would still do it mid year. The other thing I would modify is that I would do a more modeling of how to enter the social situation, and provide students with the "scripts" of how to approach their classmates. I would try to avoid to pitfall of some students being that passive. Maybe moving around should have been part of my initial instructions.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- December 4th, 2010
6. Post a copy of your Think Tac Toe using a 3 X 3 table that is color coded. Black for Basic, Blue for mid range, Red for higher level thinking. Be sure to use Bloom’s Taxonomy to develop your TTT.
Tic-Tac-Toe Activity
Designed by: Melanie, Carina, Ruth, Melissa, Randa
Target audience: First Grade and Kindergarten
Responses to fiction
Make puppets of the main characters, and play with them.
Retell the story to a friend.
Fill in a story map of the story.
Dramatize the events of the story.
Make a mural of the setting of the story. Include in your mural at least 5 details and label them.
Write a different ending to the story.
Predict what will happen next? What do you think will happen next? Write or draw a sequel to the story.
Your sequel can be 1 page or up to four pages long.
Draw your favorite part of the story and tell what is happening.
Connect something you read in the story to something from your own life. Draw or write something that happened to you that is similar to the events or characters in the book.
December 3rd, 2010
5. Comment on possible advantages of having AlphaBet Syndrome. Why might nature have done this? Is there any genetic advantage to any of these special populations.
Original assignment: Please do one more posting of 250 words or less. Describe an evolutionary reason why there might be an advantage to any of the special needs populations that we discussed in class.
As a lover of words, I cannot imagine an “advantage” to reading challenges and issues with the written word. However, what I can see is that even though it remains a disability, the “handicap” it causes is diminishing. Due to modern technology, word processing, spellcheck, audiobooks, text-to-speech gadgets on many computers and reading devices, students are able to find accommodations and adults are able to compensate and lead fulfilling lives.
In his book A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future , Daniel Pink argues that since machines and cheaper professionals overseas are now able to do most of the traditionally “left brain” type activities, what will be needed and valued in the future are right brained people who are able to think divergently, creatively, and humorously. What used to be valued, (systematic, mathematical, methodical) while still needed, will not be sufficient for world leadership. That is why he argues for education that aims at making the mind WHOLE (as in where both brain hemispheres are valued and trained) and not focusing overly on traditional left brain activities.
Please accept below my earlier attempt at answering this question.
The response below is preliminary.
ANANSITO AND THE 8 ARMS
Anansito:Papa, papa, tell me again why the sky God gives us 8 legs.
Anansi: The story as I have received it from none other but the sky god himself goes like this:
One arm is for words and the delicious way they melt together to form stories.
One arm is for holding hands with a friend.
One arm is for putting on your own heart to understand what is within.
One arm is for drawing into space, and creating beauty.
One arm is for playing the musical sounds that fill the pauses between our silence.
One arm is for writing the numbers that have been designed by the sky god since eternity.
One arm is for jumping around our webs and making somersaults in the air.
And the last arm, the last arm whispers to the trees, and feels the rainbow before it appears.
Anansito: Papa, papa, tell me about the ninth arm. The arm that is not there.
Anansi:Ah, my son. The ninth arm. The ninth arm is hidden in the recesses of our souls. No one can see it. No one can prove it. It is the secret language between man and the sky god.
Anansito: Papa I heard that some spiders have one or two weak arms. Is that true?
Anansi: … that could happen.
Anansito: Why papa, WHY?
Some arms were not needed and not used very much, hijito! The story arm was only spoken around the campfire. Nobody needed to put it in writing. Now, we need to write everything down, and for some people, writing is like an earthquake and reading is like a thunderstorm. Words do not sit still long enough, but float in the air like fog, or go down the drain with centrifugal force. (Now known as LD).
Some people were designed as protectors. They had to be aware of every single stimuli around them. They were not supposed to IGNORE any input, and no information could be deemed irrelevant. They were trained to attend to everything in order to defend and protect. They had to have all arms working together at the same time. What now looks like nonpurposeful motion used to be essential for the survival of the group. (Now known as ADHD, constant motion or the lack of filtering of stimuli).
As for the people that have difficulties with English, what can I say… there is no Egyptian Pharoah, no Roman Ceasar, no Greek philosopher, and absolutely no phoenecian trader that spoke any English. Which goes to prove that one COULD survive and be quite successful without English in the past. Now, every single cab driver in NY is supposed to speak it. How times change and evolve.
SILENCE
Anansito: Papa… I am waiting for you to tell me why some people cannot hold the hand of a friend, or look at a friend in the eye, or understand what a friend wants, even though they can explain all the laws of physics and nature.
SILENCE
Anansi: (LONG PAUSE)…I do not know my son. I do not know why that arm is sometimes weak. It is indeed a mystery. It goes against all that which makes us human – the need for human company and the ability to express that need. Perhaps it is so the others of us can strengthen the arm that is on our hearts, and reach out even further to those who are unable to meet us halfway. That way, we will imitate the Sky God, who is constantly reaching out for us. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. Cut and paste the Learning Matrix activity from page 3 on to your page and tell me which Special population you worked on.
Assignment #4
Melissa, Randa, Melanie, Allison
ELL
Learners of English, but are native speakers of a different language. Their level of English may vary, but typically, they are considered ELL if their comprehension and production of English interferes with their learning in the regular mainstream. If they need support in order to keep up, they are considered English Language Learners.
Difficulties communicating with families due to language and cultural barriers.
Difficulties finding people that speak their native language in order to bridge the gap.
Overcrowded classroom Tight budgets Lack of teacher training Big controversy over best method: English language immersion or bilingual education. How much emphasis to give to native language. Big debate over additive approaches versus subtractive approaches. Lack of bilingual teachers Standardized tests are a big challenge.
-Using LCD, alphasmarts, internet, digital cameras, scanners, and online videos and images.
-Tools and techniques: Using goole image search as a new visual dictionary. Making it more of an exploratory activity.
-Using internet search engines is going to equip them with the skills to evaluate the validity or usefulness of a website.
-Using the LCD projector you can take games like boggle and make it a whole class activity. First shake the gridbox, take a digital picture of the results, and send it directly to the computer. (or you may use a docucam if you have one).
-Editing student writing: Also using the overhead to project to the whole class.
-Music is an effective medium for retaining information because it activates three different centers of the brain at the same time: language, hearing and mental motor control. Therefore it creates a heightened condition of awareness and mental acuity.
-Words paired with music are far easier to retain.
-The messages in the songs must be reinforced by complementary activities such as writing, speaking, acting, drawing, building, creating and movement (MI)
- Extend school year
o After school programs that implement phonics-based learning programs.
o Use community resources.
-Phonic based success for all learning program: A strict and uniform lesson plan that requires 90 minutes of reading in school and 20 more at home.
-Work in small groups based on ability
-Provide individual after school assistance
3. Tell me on your wiki page the name of the cartoon on the Cartoon Assignment on Page 2 that you worked on.
Cartoon name: "Friends can be Different" by Randa Breuer and Carrina Carreras. Ours is the fifth one down. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. Assignment #2: Comment on your recent learning in our class about multiple intelligence theory or learning styles.Original assignment:Write one short reflection. (less than 250 words) Tell us one new thing that you learned about Multiple Intelligence / Learning Styles or differentiation.
I have been reading about Multiple Intelligence and Learning styles for a while (the last 20 years). I STILL am a little fuzzy on the differences between them, but tonight, talking to Verito, she said something that really caught my attention.
I was telling Verito that I think the difference between them are more semantics that real. To me as a teacher, both give me the same message:
---Get to know each student in order to figure out their favorite “mode” be it Learning style/intelligence/etc.
---- Teach in a variety of ways. You CANNOT reach each child by teaching the same way, or using one mode.
Verito said: “ Yes, what learning styles tells you is to PRESENT information via different modes (Kinesthetic/visual/auditory).
What Multiple Intelligence tells you is to expect different OUTPUTS from the students.”
Thank you Verito! I enjoyed learning with you through our interpersonal intelligences!
1. Tell everyone your name, what you teach, the grade level and 3 things you would like to share with the class.
Greetings! I am Randa Breuer. I teach Kindergarten, the true mecca for Multiple Intelligences in action. Early Childhood teachers are naturally dealing with a cafeteria of activities that span all existing and not yet discovered intelligences.
A few things about me:
1. My Family is composed of five people born in 4 different places:
Tamara born in the USA, and Timothy, born in Bolivia
Luis and Matias, both born in Asuncion, Paraguay
To find out where I was born, check my widget!!! Hint hint: It is a cedar tree.
2. I am a compulsive reader. I had to go through everyone’s pages before I settled down to do my assignment. I enjoyed knowing who my classmates were, Day 1.
3. I have recently discovered how important laughter is. I have become addicted to humor. I love listening to funny shows on the radio (Wait Wait don’t tell me just cracks me up!) I love kindergartner’s sense of humor! It is unique. Did you know that adults laugh less than 10 times a day, whereas children laugh more than 100 times a day?
4. I must be an auditory learner. I prefer Radio to TV. TV puts me to sleep in 30 seconds. (I listen to Writer’s Almanac by Garrison Keeler every morning before I get up to get ready. I highly recommend it).
7. Read the Book MI in the Elementary Classroom. Pick two activities from the back of the chapters. Implement two of these ideas into your class. Write a report of 250 (+-) words describing your activity. Be sure to tell me.
a. The age of the students and grade level
b. The Subject you teach
c. How you implemented the activity
d. How the children responded
e. Will you do this again?
f. What will you do differently.
a. The age of children I teach: I teach kindergarten, ages 5 and 6.
b. I teach in the context of a self-contained classroom all the subjects. Our kindergarten classes are part of the Primary Years Program of the IB program. We are full immersion in English at the Kindergarten level.
THE ACTIVITIES I CHOSE TO IMPLEMENT ARE:
First Activity: Novice/Expert Activity – page 30(with a kindergarten twist)
Second Activity: Bingo Activity page 126
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
c. ACTIVITY ONE: HOW I IMPLEMENTED THIS ACTIVITY:
Our PYP unit of inquiry is about the theme of Celebrations.
As their summative assessment, the students had been designing throughout the unit our very own celebration (THE LOST TOOTH CELEBRATION). Their final project was to present their celebration.
My original intent was to use a variation of the novice/expert activity, and have the students choose how they wanted to present their celebration, but using only their “expert” mode, or their favorite and chosen way.
I had my clipboard and data sheet ready and I was all set to find out who my “experts” were.
So I gave them their choices.
- How many of you would like to act out a celebration in the dramatic play area and put it up as a show for the rest of us?
(This time ZERO hands came up!)My CONCLUSION at that point was that my students, given their young age, had not yet limited themselves to any particular mode of operation. They were still exploring and enjoying many different media. (It was clear however, that performing was not one of them.) They were “Developing their talents” through their exploration.
So I quickly changed my plan. We are building our talents. We will not limit ourselves to an activity. We will do ALL THREE: And that is what we did.
STEPS TO OUR MACHINE MAKING:
1. Make a blue print of your machine in pencil and describe your plan.
2. Build your machine.
3. Draw your machine with permanent markers and watercolors.
4. Describe your end product to your teacher as well to two or three classmates. (Teacher wrote the words down as their “story”). This will be turned into a class book about celebration machines.
5. Display your product, your art work, and your words for all to see.
6. Share the end product with your parents during our end of year celebration party (All parents came to school on Monday December 20 to attend the Christmas show).
7. Share the end product with students from Room 103 (next door), Ms. Carina's class. This will be the "acting" part of their project. Due to their reluctance to act, this will be an area I will focus on developing throughout the year. (Unfortunately, I was not able to videotape the sharing part, which would have been the ideal culmination of this project).
blueprint, machine, artwork, and narrative.
Sharing about our machines with Ms. Carina's class.
"Eric", one of our visitors from next door, was inspired to create his own machine.
Hannah" sharing her book with her friend. She was the only one who did not succumb to the lure of machine making and firmly stood by making a celebration book rather than a machine.
d. CHILDREN’S RESPONSE:
We spent two days making blue prints of our machines. Students chose whether to work with a partner or to work alone. (My assistant and I kept data on who chose what).
Children were fascinated by the recyclables, and as they were working, if they chose a recyclable that came from their homes, they told us the story of that recyclable.
Children were very interested in every step. Many of the typically reluctant artists found it very easy to draw because they had the machine in front of them, and they were very invested in its production.
Even though children varied in their verbal skills, many had a lot to say about their machine, even the ones that are typically not overly verbal.
The lesson taught me as a teacher that when children are motivated and invested in what they are doing, their quality of work goes up. Their talent development is deeper.
e. Would I do this again?
Yes, this activity was fabulous.
f. What would you do differently:
What I learned about THIS group of students is that 1. They prefer to work alone and 2. They do not like to perform.
Whereas I would not change this activity, I will make a more conscious effort during this year, and with this group, to expose them more to cooperative group work as well as to opportunities to role play and dramatize.
Next time, I will make sure to videotape as they present their machines to their guests.
In the link below, you can see the narratives about the different machines.
Activity Two: People Bingo (p. 126)Edu604 people Bingo.doc I have inserted a link to the file because you cannot see the images here.
C. How I implemented this activity: I chose this activity because it seemed like a good way to end the semester. We did it on the last two days of school.
I chose to modify it from the example given in the book (page 128) by adding images. The reading part would have been too frustrating. The children would not possibly remember what each box stood for. I included a lot of our sight words in the boxes and chose very simple language. I included a separate box for signing your name as Kindergartners would be too frustrated by small places to sign, and too confused if the space to sign was not clear. The other “academic” skill that this reinforced is that it asked them to sign their name 19 times, and they did it in a fun way.
d. The children enjoyed this activity. The next day I asked them to reflect on the activity: “ what did you like about the activity we did yesterday?”
Responses: I liked moving around and asking my friends questions.
I liked finding out about my friends
I liked telling my friends what I liked.
The interesting part of my observations was that students needed a LOT of social skills for this activity. They had to know how to approach a person, know when they are available to listen to them, secure their attention, ask them a clear question such as: "What is your favorite activity?".
I noticed that students who lacked these skills just sat there and waited for others to approach them.
e. Will you do this again? YES! I now have this Bingo game and will do it with each new group of students.
f. I would not do it on the last two days of school. It took too long, and we ended up with an unfinished activity. I would start it earlier, do a little bit each day, and allow the kids to reach closure by completing their BINGO.
Whereas it is a good activity to do at the beginning of the year for older children, K kids would not have been able to sign in confined spaces earlier on in the year. So I would still do it mid year.
The other thing I would modify is that I would do a more modeling of how to enter the social situation, and provide students with the "scripts" of how to approach their classmates. I would try to avoid to pitfall of some students being that passive. Maybe moving around should have been part of my initial instructions.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
December 4th, 2010
6. Post a copy of your Think Tac Toe using a 3 X 3 table that is color coded. Black for Basic, Blue for mid range, Red for higher level thinking. Be sure to use Bloom’s Taxonomy to develop your TTT.
Tic-Tac-Toe Activity
Designed by: Melanie, Carina, Ruth, Melissa, Randa
Target audience: First Grade and Kindergarten
Responses to fiction
Write or draw a sequel to the story.
Your sequel can be 1 page or up to four pages long.
December 3rd, 2010
5. Comment on possible advantages of having AlphaBet Syndrome. Why might nature have done this? Is there any genetic advantage to any of these special populations.
Original assignment: Please do one more posting of 250 words or less. Describe an evolutionary reason why there might be an advantage to any of the special needs populations that we discussed in class.
As a lover of words, I cannot imagine an “advantage” to reading challenges and issues with the written word. However, what I can see is that even though it remains a disability, the “handicap” it causes is diminishing. Due to modern technology, word processing, spellcheck, audiobooks, text-to-speech gadgets on many computers and reading devices, students are able to find accommodations and adults are able to compensate and lead fulfilling lives.
In his book A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future , Daniel Pink argues that since machines and cheaper professionals overseas are now able to do most of the traditionally “left brain” type activities, what will be needed and valued in the future are right brained people who are able to think divergently, creatively, and humorously. What used to be valued, (systematic, mathematical, methodical) while still needed, will not be sufficient for world leadership. That is why he argues for education that aims at making the mind WHOLE (as in where both brain hemispheres are valued and trained) and not focusing overly on traditional left brain activities.
Please accept below my earlier attempt at answering this question.
The response below is preliminary.
ANANSITO AND THE 8 ARMS
Anansito:Papa, papa, tell me again why the sky God gives us 8 legs.
Anansi: The story as I have received it from none other but the sky god himself goes like this:
One arm is for words and the delicious way they melt together to form stories.
One arm is for holding hands with a friend.
One arm is for putting on your own heart to understand what is within.
One arm is for drawing into space, and creating beauty.
One arm is for playing the musical sounds that fill the pauses between our silence.
One arm is for writing the numbers that have been designed by the sky god since eternity.
One arm is for jumping around our webs and making somersaults in the air.
And the last arm, the last arm whispers to the trees, and feels the rainbow before it appears.
Anansito: Papa, papa, tell me about the ninth arm. The arm that is not there.
Anansi:Ah, my son. The ninth arm. The ninth arm is hidden in the recesses of our souls. No one can see it. No one can prove it. It is the secret language between man and the sky god.
Anansito: Papa I heard that some spiders have one or two weak arms. Is that true?
Anansi: … that could happen.
Anansito: Why papa, WHY?
Some arms were not needed and not used very much, hijito! The story arm was only spoken around the campfire. Nobody needed to put it in writing. Now, we need to write everything down, and for some people, writing is like an earthquake and reading is like a thunderstorm. Words do not sit still long enough, but float in the air like fog, or go down the drain with centrifugal force. (Now known as LD).
Some people were designed as protectors. They had to be aware of every single stimuli around them. They were not supposed to IGNORE any input, and no information could be deemed irrelevant. They were trained to attend to everything in order to defend and protect. They had to have all arms working together at the same time. What now looks like nonpurposeful motion used to be essential for the survival of the group. (Now known as ADHD, constant motion or the lack of filtering of stimuli).
As for the people that have difficulties with English, what can I say… there is no Egyptian Pharoah, no Roman Ceasar, no Greek philosopher, and absolutely no phoenecian trader that spoke any English. Which goes to prove that one COULD survive and be quite successful without English in the past. Now, every single cab driver in NY is supposed to speak it. How times change and evolve.
SILENCE
Anansito: Papa… I am waiting for you to tell me why some people cannot hold the hand of a friend, or look at a friend in the eye, or understand what a friend wants, even though they can explain all the laws of physics and nature.
SILENCE
Anansi: (LONG PAUSE)…I do not know my son. I do not know why that arm is sometimes weak. It is indeed a mystery. It goes against all that which makes us human – the need for human company and the ability to express that need. Perhaps it is so the others of us can strengthen the arm that is on our hearts, and reach out even further to those who are unable to meet us halfway. That way, we will imitate the Sky God, who is constantly reaching out for us.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4. Cut and paste the Learning Matrix activity from page 3 on to your page and tell me which Special population you worked on.
Assignment #4
Difficulties finding people that speak their native language in order to bridge the gap.
Overcrowded classroom
Tight budgets
Lack of teacher training
Big controversy over best method: English language immersion or bilingual education.
How much emphasis to give to native language. Big debate over additive approaches versus subtractive approaches.
Lack of bilingual teachers
Standardized tests are a big challenge.
-Tools and techniques: Using goole image search as a new visual dictionary. Making it more of an exploratory activity.
-Using internet search engines is going to equip them with the skills to evaluate the validity or usefulness of a website.
-Using the LCD projector you can take games like boggle and make it a whole class activity. First shake the gridbox, take a digital picture of the results, and send it directly to the computer. (or you may use a docucam if you have one).
-Editing student writing: Also using the overhead to project to the whole class.
-Music is an effective medium for retaining information because it activates three different centers of the brain at the same time: language, hearing and mental motor control. Therefore it creates a heightened condition of awareness and mental acuity.
-Words paired with music are far easier to retain.
-The messages in the songs must be reinforced by complementary activities such as writing, speaking, acting, drawing, building, creating and movement (MI)
- Extend school year
o After school programs that implement phonics-based learning programs.
o Use community resources.
-Phonic based success for all learning program: A strict and uniform lesson plan that requires 90 minutes of reading in school and 20 more at home.
-Work in small groups based on ability
-Provide individual after school assistance
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. Tell me on your wiki page the name of the cartoon on the Cartoon Assignment on Page 2 that you worked on.
Cartoon name: "Friends can be Different" by Randa Breuer and Carrina Carreras.
Ours is the fifth one down.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. Assignment #2: Comment on your recent learning in our class about multiple intelligence theory or learning styles. Original assignment: Write one short reflection. (less than 250 words) Tell us one new thing that you learned about Multiple Intelligence / Learning Styles or differentiation.
I have been reading about Multiple Intelligence and Learning styles for a while (the last 20 years). I STILL am a little fuzzy on the differences between them, but tonight, talking to Verito, she said something that really caught my attention.
I was telling Verito that I think the difference between them are more semantics that real.
To me as a teacher, both give me the same message:
---Get to know each student in order to figure out their favorite “mode” be it Learning style/intelligence/etc.
---- Teach in a variety of ways. You CANNOT reach each child by teaching the same way, or using one mode.
Verito said: “ Yes, what learning styles tells you is to PRESENT information via different modes (Kinesthetic/visual/auditory).
What Multiple Intelligence tells you is to expect different OUTPUTS from the students.”
Thank you Verito! I enjoyed learning with you through our interpersonal intelligences!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Assignment #1: November 30, 2010
1. Tell everyone your name, what you teach, the grade level and 3 things you would like to share with the class.
Greetings! I am Randa Breuer. I teach Kindergarten, the true mecca for Multiple Intelligences in action. Early Childhood teachers are naturally dealing with a cafeteria of activities that span all existing and not yet discovered intelligences.
A few things about me:
1. My Family is composed of five people born in 4 different places:
To find out where I was born, check my widget!!! Hint hint: It is a cedar tree.
2. I am a compulsive reader. I had to go through everyone’s pages before I settled down to do my assignment. I enjoyed knowing who my classmates were, Day 1.
3. I have recently discovered how important laughter is. I have become addicted to humor. I love listening to funny shows on the radio (Wait Wait don’t tell me just cracks me up!) I love kindergartner’s sense of humor! It is unique. Did you know that adults laugh less than 10 times a day, whereas children laugh more than 100 times a day?
4. I must be an auditory learner. I prefer Radio to TV. TV puts me to sleep in 30 seconds. (I listen to Writer’s Almanac by Garrison Keeler every morning before I get up to get ready. I highly recommend it).